World TB Day 2010: On the Move Against Tuberculosis

March 24, 2010 | by

Today is World Tuberculosis Day; it’s celebrated annually on March 24th. The event is used to raise awareness about the ongoing fight against the disease. This year’s theme is on innovation and focuses on individuals around the world who have found new ways to stop TB and can serve as an inspiration to others.

WorldTBDay

Tuberculosis or TB, which is short for Tubercles Bacillus, is a common and often deadly infectious disease caused by mycobacteria in humans. TB usually attacks the lungs but it can also affect other parts of the body. More than 2 billion people are infected with TB bacilli; 1 in 10 will become sick with active TB in their lifetime [1]. Left untreated, more than 50% of those infected will die from the disease.

Crohns Disease Treatment Also Helps Protect the Gut From Infection

March 24, 2010 | by
ResearchBlogging.org

The gene Granulocyte-Macrophage Colony Stimulating Factor (GM-CSF) encodes a cytokine, a signaling molecule secreted by immune cells that has an effect on other cells and is involved in inflammation. A recent report in Cell Host and Microbe reveals that in the gut, GM-CSF helps protect against infection by a bacterial pathogen [1].

Dendritic cell

GM-CSF has long been known to promote the survival and differentiation of dendritic cells, immune cells that are present in small quantities in tissues that are in contact with the external environment, including the skin and the inner lining of the nose, lungs, stomach and intestines. Dendritic cells are immune modulators that originate in the bone marrow and travel through the blood and lymph to the peripheral tissues in an immature state. Once they arrive, they differentiate and function as professional “antigen presenting cells”: they alert T cells and B cells to the presence of any foreign invaders. The T and B cells then mount an immune response.

NIH Announces Genetic Testing Registry

March 20, 2010 | by

The National Institutes of Health announced today that it is creating a public database that researchers, consumers, health care providers, and others can search for information submitted voluntarily by genetic test providers. The Genetic Testing Registry (GTR) aims to enhance access to information about the availability, validity, and usefulness of genetic tests.

Currently, more than 1,600 genetic tests are available to patients and consumers, but there is no single public resource that provides detailed information about them. GTR is intended to fill that gap.

The overarching goal of the GTR is to advance the public health and research into the genetic basis of health and disease. As such, the registry will have several key functions:

  • Encourage providers of genetic tests to enhance transparency by publicly sharing information about the availability and utility of their tests
  • Provide an information resource for the public, including researchers, health care providers and patients, to locate laboratories that offer particular tests
  • Facilitate genomic data-sharing for research and new scientific discoveries

NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., said:

The need for this database reflects how far we have come in the last 10 years. The registry will help consumers and health care providers determine the best options for genetic testing, which is becoming more and more common and accessible. Our combined expertise in biomedical research and managing such large databases makes NIH the ideal home for the registry.

The GTR project will be overseen by the NIH Office of the Director. The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), part of the National Library of Medicine at NIH, will be responsible for developing the registry, which is expected to be available in 2011. GTR genetic test data will be integrated with information in other NIH/NCBI genetic, scientific, and medical databases to facilitate the research process. This integration will allow scientists to make, more easily and effectively, the kinds of connections that ultimately lead to discoveries and scientific advances.

During the development process, NIH will engage with stakeholders — such as genetic test developers, test kit manufacturers, health care providers, patients, and researchers — for their insights on the best way to collect and display test information. In addition, other federal agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, will be consulted.

More information about the Genetic Testing Registry and NCBI is available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gtr/.

Source: NIH News

Where You Live Matters to Your Health

March 18, 2010 | by

The County Health Rankings — the first set of reports to rank the overall health of every county in all 50 states — were released recently by the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The 50 state reports, available on www.countyhealthrankings.org, enables consumers, public health and community leaders, policy-makers and others to see how healthy their county is, compare it with others within their state and find ways to improve the health of their community.

County Health Rankings

The County Health Rankings

The County Health Rankings identify the healthiest and least healthy counties within every state in the nation. Health outcomes in the County Health Rankings represent how healthy a county is. Two types of health outcomes are measured: how long people live (mortality) and how healthy people feel while alive (morbidity).

Impulsive-Antisocial Personality Traits Linked to a Hypersensitive Brain Reward System

March 15, 2010 | by

Normal individuals who scored high on a measure of impulsive/antisocial traits display a hypersensitive brain reward system, according to a brain imaging study by researchers at Vanderbilt University. The findings provide the first evidence of differences in the brain’s reward system that may underlie vulnerability to what’s typically referred to as psychopathy.

The study in the current issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a component of the National Institutes of Health.

Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by a combination of superficial charm, manipulative and antisocial behavior, sensation-seeking and impulsivity, blunted empathy and punishment sensitivity, and shallow emotional experiences. Psychopathy is a particularly robust predictor of criminal behavior and recidivism.

Since psychopathic individuals are at increased risk for developing substance use problems, the Vanderbilt team decided to investigate possible links between the brain’s reward system (activated by abused substances and natural reward), and a behavioral trait (impulsive/antisociality) characteristic of psychopathy. Researchers used two different technologies to measure the brain’s reward response.